26


Issue 2 2013


Good things come in small packages


Ireland’s exporters are highly creative - and it benefits


the


country’s bottom line, even if the freight movements are relatively small. A classic example is the winner last November of the Irish Exporters Association’s Innovation Exporter of the Year Award, Megazyme International. You would need a degree in


molecular biology to understand fully what Megazyme does. In short, it produces reagents and diagnostic test kits to help cereal processors, animal feed producers, suppliers of food additives, cheesemakers, brewers and wine growers among many others to monitor their product quality. The Megazyme kits - many


based on test processes the company has devised itself, and which have formed the basis of global industry standards - can test for sugars, starches, dietary


Megazyme developed many of its test procedures in-house


fibre, citric acid and a host of other ingredients. Each kit is made up of a selection


of pills, flakes, powders and liquids - Megazyme’s complete range is around 500 products - typically supplied in a set of five or six of small vials and packed in a tough polystyrene outer. So confident is owner, chairman and CEO Barry McCleary in his shock-proof boxes that he hurls one violently against the wall. No damage is done, but it won’t be going out to a customer. It’s high-value business. McCleary, who


employs 35


highly skilled people on a small industrial estate in Bray, south of Dublin, explains that the compounds his customers need to test can cost thousands of euros per gram. Megazyme exports to 90


countries, and despatched 1,000 orders in the first two months of this year. Most orders are placed online and can range from a single box shipped direct to the customer (weight minimal, value up to €200) to the multiple sets more usually required by the company’s 45 distributors worldwide.


///IRELAND


Freight shortfall costs Irish Ferries


Ro-ro freight traffic shrank by 5.6% - almost 11,000 units - for Irish Ferries last year, though operating profits were up thanks to increased passenger numbers. “There continues to be overcapacity in the freight


DHL took over as Megazyme’s


service provider in June 2011. “The attitude of our previous provider was ‘you’re only a small company,’ and we felt we had no negotiating power,” McCleary says. “Orders placed before 12 noon


go next day and will arrive in the US or Europe one day later, or to the rest of the world in two days. It’s quite different from inbound supplies


to our laboratory,


whether that’s bulk chemicals or pieces of equipment, which can take three to four weeks. Maybe we should call DHL!”


market particularly on the


longer sea routes, which is unsustainable at current market demand,” John McGuckian, chairman of owner Irish Continental Group, said in his operating review. “Pressure on operating costs for our freight customers remained intense. The backdrop of increased fuel costs made trading difficult for our customers, who are consumers of road diesel in addition to purchasing deck space on our ferries.” In the first two months


of this year, however, ro-ro freight volumes are up 4%. ICG commented: “There is


some


evidence of the Irish economy improving with unemployment and house prices stabilising. Commentators have recently upgraded growth forecasts for


the Irish economy, with GDP growth of 1.3% now expected.” According to Irish Ferries’


freight manager Eugene Carron, the Irish Sea ro-ro market as a whole lost 1.6% of its trailer traffic in 2012. He believes the


central corridor


principally Dublin to Holyhead and Liverpool, suffer slightly less during recession because of Ireland’s road pattern and massive recent improvements. “The southern route was a


valuable outlet for the Cork area when there was a lack of capacity on the central routes, but without that capacity pressure, there’s limited demand. Cork to Dublin is such an easy drive now that truckers are less inclined to go down to


Rosslare. The southern


corridor was down 8% over the year,” Carron says.


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Economic recovery liſts lo lo market


Eucon handled 5.7% fewer containers in 2012 - 252,900teu on its lo-lo services to and from Ireland and domestic door-to-door movements, though there was an upturn of 9%, at 48,000teu, in January and February. However, liſts recorded at Irish Continental Group’s container terminals in Dublin (DFT) and Belfast (BCT), which handle third-party vessels as well as Eucon, were 2% lower during the first two months of this year, continuing the downward pattern (-2.4%) seen in 2012. The improvement in Eucon’s


fortunes this year is only partly explained by its decision to take over the running of the Dublin- Radicatel service aſter previous


operator CldN announced in December that it was pulling out. The operator is deploying its smallest vessel, the 390teu Emstal, on the route. “We decided to re-enter the


French market but it has been in decline in recent years and is very small today, only 2% of our business - and we were already taking slots on the CLdN vessel,” says Eucon sales manager Rory O’Regan. A bigger factor in the recovery


is that import volumes are finally starting to tick back up, O’Regan says. “House prices in Dublin, a marker of how people feel about the economy, are increasing although they’ve been massively


low compared with their previous levels in the last three years. Home


sales generate


income and tax, and may be stimulating demand for general household products.” A slight firming in charter


rates aſter a period when vessel owners had to accept below- cost rates may also be a positive sign. Eucon relied on aggressive recovery of increased fuel costs via surcharges to help it stay afloat when fuel prices soared last autumn. But the operator stated at the time of putting its own vessel on the French service that it would look to recoup the extra costs by reviewing its rate agreements.


Slicker shipping at Central CORK


KILDARE ROSSLARE


Even in a world dominated by multinational freight forwarders “there is still room for the smaller guy,” says Philip Clancy, MD of Central


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Airport-based company, whose business these days is 80% air freight as it specialises in high-end electronics shipments, upgraded at the beginning of this year to ediEnterprise soſtware from


CargoWise. “It’s been a daunting migration


as we were rather in the dark ages before,” Clancy admits. “But it was vital to make the change, because we’ve been bucking the trend by getting steadily busier. Clients appreciate personal service, and find that larger forwarders can be constrained by their internal systems.”


He chose the remotely


hosted, Cloud-based version of ediEnterprise for its ability to reduce time and paperwork on shipment processing, without the cost of hardware and ongoing maintenance. Shared visibility was also an important consideration, as Central Shipping supplies spare parts to engineers who need to see availability in real time.


routes,


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